a hearing on cyber security and infrastructure. at 10:30 a.m. on c-span2, the senate returns for work on judicial nominations. senators resume consideration of a judge for the district of new jersey. at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3, the senate commerce committee holds a hearing on conversation for student athletes -- compensation for student athletes. at 2:00 p.m., attorney general merrick garland testifies on the justice department's 2022 budget request. on c-span.org, we will have a hearing on the international covid-19 pandemic response and the role of u.s. leadership at 3:00 p.m. eastern. coming up in one hour on "washington journal," dr. marty makary, author of "the price we pay" on the u.s. health care system and the impact of covid-19. at eight

, former senior counsel to the house intelligence committee and discusses recent ransomware attacks on infrastructure. --jamil jaffer former senior counsel to house intelligence committee. host: good morning. it is june 9, 2021. a hearing focused on the key opioid makers played in the crisis, coming amid recent data that opioid deaths were third in deaths at historic levels. we are hearing from you on what the opioid surge has been like on the ground in your community. with phone lines split this way, if you have been impacted by the opioid crisis, (202)-748-8000. medical professionals, (202)-748-8001. all others, (202)-748-8002.

you can also send as a text message this morning, (202)-748-8003. if you do, include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media on twitter at, @cspanwj. on facebook.com/c-span. a good wednesday morning. go ahead and start calling you now. we will get to your phone calls but first, the grim numbers on the opioid crisis during the pandemic from a recent "new york times" story. more than 87,000 americans died over a 12 month period from drug doses. that eclipses the total from any year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990's. the biggest jump in overdose deaths took place in april and may when stress were rampant, "the new york times" rights, and restrictive lockdown measures were in effect. that preliminary data released by the cdc show 29% rise in

overdose deaths from october 2019 through september 2020 compared with the previous 12 months compared with the previous 12 months. yesterday from "the hill" newspaper story on that hearing, congressman maloney, the chair of the oversight committee, pressed lawmakers to approve legislation meant to prevent the sakker family, the owners of the company producing oxycontin from the crisis. it would allow them -- this from a portion of chairwoman maloney's opening statement yesterday. [video clip] >> over the past two decades, nearly half a million people have died as a result of the opioid academic -- opioid

epidemic. yet, there is not a single thing the sackler's would have done differently. it is shocking and appalling and shows why we desperately need accountability for the sackler's deadly and outrageous conduct. covid-19 has claimed 597,000 american lives. the opioid epidemic is nearly as deadly as the worst pandemic in modern history. and there is no vaccine for opioid addiction. since the december hearing, even more information has come to light since learning the sackler's deadly disregard for human life. much of this information has been brought to us by a recently published book, "empire of pain," reveals new, deadly details of the sackler's

leadership in pharma and the opioid epidemic. in his book, the author provides a horrifying account of how the sackler's disregarded the opioid crisis as it ignited and pushed executives to sell more and more of the dangerous prescription painkiller as the crisis raged and blaming those experiencing addiction in order to protect oxycontin and its process. [end video clip] host: hearing more from that hearing this morning, you heard chair maloney mentioned "empire of pain" by patrick radden keefe. back at the end of april, on "afterwards," we discussed his book, opioid crisis if you want to watch that on our website at c-span.org. this morning, we are listening

to you, hearing your stories, especially from the past year when it comes to the opioid crisis and a year that saw historic surges in deaths. if you have been impacted by opioids, (202)-748-8000. medical professionals, (202)-748-8001. all others, (202)-748-8002. mark is at first, englewood, florida, on the line for those who have been impacted by the opioid crisis. good morning. mark, you with us? you have to stick by your phone. we will go to scott in hutchinson, kansas. good morning. caller: good morning. am i on? host: yes or. -- yes sir. caller: thank you for c-span and all you do, but i personally have not, but family members have. one individual that i felt it

was not right, he had an injury, got addicted, and he tried to get off. did not get medication, and so in trying to, he ended up -- he had one pill in his possession and was hospitalized because he had a fit, and he got a felony for that. and the felony affected his family's ability to earn income in a good way, and that stuck with him. it really had a ripple effect that was even more than just the addiction itself. also, -- host: scott, can i ask how he did during the pandemic, the lockdown, during the time of social distancing? caller: he has done better. i mean, he has not had the problem as much because he has

had children since then and has been more involved, but it was a real hard road for him. i would also like to just say that the fentanyl problem, it is high numbers, and what is really sad is, you know, if a person hits bottom on alcohol, they can come up from it realizing they need to make a change, but with this deadly fentanyl, these young people cannot. there is a lot of them that die from it. i guess there are two types, one is a lot more potent than the other. host: on the fentanyl and synthetic opioids, that surge we saw was a large part because of the synthetic opioid deaths. you can see this chart from the health equity fund, looking at the start of the pandemic in

march of 2020 and the surges in deaths, the bottom line is the surge in synthetic opioid deaths, which led to the increase in all opioid deaths, the middle green line, and the blue line, the total overdose deaths in this country, taking up, especially in those months immediately following the lockdown, march, april, may, and into june. that is from the commonwealth fund. robert in fayetteville, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: hello. i am a 59-year-old male. i am retired. i hurt my back around 22 years ago, work-related injury, several work-related injuries, and i have been on opioids for over 20 years. i think the numbers, these high

numbers, i think a lot of them represent the people who are in genuine pain, like i am, on a daily basis. a lot of these people have been thrown off on physicians forced to cut back on the amount of prescriptions they write. they might have been writing too many prescriptions, but i think it is very hard to get a position to write a prescription for opioids right now. host: robert, what about having that conversation with a physician face-to-face compared to the increase in telemedicine that we have seen during the coronavirus pandemic? have you gone through that experience? caller: i do not know of any physician that will prescribe an opioid over the phone through telemedicine, zoom, or anything.

i personally have to go see my physician once a month in person, face-to-face in order to get my prescription, and i have to travel about 35 miles away from home just to be able to find a physician towards our state capitol. i think they are being forced by the powers that be to cut back on them, regardless of how many people are in pain or not. if a doctor says you cannot have any more medicine, that is a great deal of people who have been cut off and who have sought relief of their pain elsewhere. those are the ones who are inexperienced with street drugs and such and such. those people, i believe, will get tripped up in buying street drugs with fentanyl.

host: robert, have you ever been tempted to do that in a time when the opioids are running low? caller: yeah, sometimes -- well, it is hard, like you said, some days are worse than others, and if you don't have enough pills to make your next prescription, yet, i could see -- yeah, i could see people doing that. i have a regiment where i can take, i can cut down -- i can take a pill, cut them in half and then push it. instead of every six hours, go have and have one every eight hours. if you are a day behind, that will help out a little bit. host: robert, thanks for sharing your story out of

fayetteville, pennsylvania. on the line for medical professionals, dr. doshi. good morning. what are you seeing in your part of the country? caller: i am a physician in mississippi, and i will tell you briefly how it happened. the judiciary decided that the patient should not suffer in pain. pain is subjective, and they have made a picture of pain as a vital sign which is subjective. if a patient is in pain, they should be given some medicine for the pain. if not, then the judges have taken up against doctors. it is a complicated predicament. these drug companies and doctors are designed that way to help alleviate the pain. where do we draw a line in the objective and subjective pain? these opioids have been known to be addictive since the beginning

of time. host: what kind of medicine to your practice? caller: i am a primary care internist. host: how has what you are seeing in this area, how did it change during the coronavirus pandemic? caller: what happened is coronavirus is very complicated because the whole system shutdown. health care people are shut down. people don't have an axis, and even if they do, there restrict monitoring of the patients who are drug seekers or not, and selling and buying. and a lot of people working in medicine, they all have become clinicians. and long-term events have to be thought upon. in the pandemic, it becomes difficult for patients, and if they are addicted, they need

some way to get their system clean, which is a long-term process. host: dr. doshi out of mississippi. the line for medical professionals, (202)-748-8001, if you want to share what you are seeing in your part of the country. if you have been impacted by opioids, (202)-748-8000. all others, (202)-748-8002. setting aside this first hour of "washington journal" to talk about to talk about the opioid surge during the pandemic. having this conversation after the hearing yesterday focusing on the sackler family and purdue pharma. during that hearing, one of the top republicans on the hearing, the ranking member, focus, as well, on the border crisis and the trafficking of illicit drugs coming across the border. i think that is part of this continued surge we are seeing. this is congressman james comer, the republican from kentucky. [video clip] >> we have a growing number of

opioids streaming across our southern border. my republican colleagues and i have sent three letters to chairman maloney asking her to hold a hearing on the biden border crisis. we have not had it. the longer the chairwoman waits to hold a hearing on the border crisis, the more americans are dying due to fentanyl coming across the border. and the economic shutdowns during the covid pandemic have prevented opioid abuse disorder patients from accessing care. without access to care, patients are isolated at a higher risk and -- and at a higher risk of relapsing. this hearing is focused on the sackler family that it forgets the epidemic affecting millions each day it forgets the epidemic affecting millions each day. the chairwoman to hold a hearing on the border crisis to stop the illicit trafficking of fentanyl to reopen our country so that patient access and can access

the care they need. [end video clip] host: that was congressman james comer yesterday before the house oversight and reform committee. the sackler family and purdue pharma have testified before on capitol hill. this certainly not the first hearing on their role in the opioid crisis. this from december of last year, members of the sackler family asked by chairwoman carolyn maloney if they would apologize for purdue pharma's role in the opioid crisis. this is kathy sackler, the former purdue pharma vice president. [video clip] >> i have tried to figure out is there anything i could have done differently knowing what i knew then, and not what i know now, and i have to say, there is nothing that i can find that i would have done differently

based on what i believed and understood them, and what i learned from management and the reports to the board, and what i learned from my colleagues and the board. it is extremely distressing. >> mr. sackler, will you apologize for the role you played in the opioid crisis? >> i echo much of what my cousin said, but i will say to the american people i am deeply and profoundly sorry that oxycontin has played a role in any deaths. while i believe i conducted myself legally and ethically, and i believe the full record will demonstrate that, i still feel absolutely terrible that a product created to help, and has

helped so many people, has also been associated with death and addiction. [end video clip] host: all these hearings are available, and you can watch them in entirety, at our website, c-span.org. this morning, we are spending our time hearing from you around the country about the opioid surge during the coronavirus pandemic, the opioid death surge. the numbers from the cdc showing death rates at historic levels. as "the new york times" notes in their recent story on it, and unlike in the early years of the epidemic, when deaths were common in rural areas, it is affecting black americans distal portion of. those numbers out in april from the cdc, showing some 87,000 americans died over a 12 month period and ended september last year. this is tina, huntington,

pennsylvania, impacted by the opioid crisis. good morning. caller: good morning. please be patient with me because this subject is very touchy. i lost a son in 2012 to oxycontin, a mixture of p urdue medication that he took and passed away. my point i would like to make is our government is primarily just as responsible as purdue is for that type of opioid overdose. i now am also a chronic pain patient who goes through the stigma of, hey, she's an addict because she has to take something. and we have congresspeople sitting up there, looking at us like we are addicts chasing a drug, which we are not, but they allow these pill mills, and i can number after my third or fourth back surgery, walking

into a clinic with a pamphlet that said $500 off your prescription. and it was that prescription. but our government today needs to get out of the doctor's office. we are patients first. if you put us all in a room, and you give us all drug tests, we are able to cope with her medication. -- cope with our medication. i have clear reps to the point where i cannot move. i am only 52 years old. there are times i cannot move. i cannot take motrin. i cannot take aleve because of other issues. now, the government is giving me the god complex. if you walk into a pharmacy, and you hand them a prescription, they look at you, and they say, you don't look like you need this, they deny you. and it is people like me that

congress needs to be listening to, not the billionaires that are putting the poison on the streets, like the cartel. my god! all they have to do is watch "catch a smuggler." it is coming in from everywhere. it was just in minneapolis last year. the fake pills that looked identical to what is prescribed turned out to be nothing but fentanyl. i am so thankful that you guys are touching the subject, thank you so much. host: tina, thanks for sharing your story. i am so very sorry for the loss of your son. tina in pennsylvania. she mentioned pill mills. last month, the house passed a bill to crack down on pill dumping and pill mills, pill dumping by drug companies and the distribution of massive amounts of pills in certain parts of the country. here is part of that debate featuring congresswoman debbie dingell of michigan. [video clip] >> this bipartisan legislation would limit safeguards against

pill dumping and other abusive practices to address that opioid epidemic, which remains one of the most pressing public health crisis faced in our country. last year, over 88,000 americans lost their lives as a result of the opioid crisis, including 2650 individuals in my home state of michigan. communities across the country are hurting, and new tools to address pill dumping and other dodgy practices that have exasperated the opioid crisis are needed now more than ever. this actual strength and oversight and integrity of the opioid supply chain by requiring that drug manufacturers and distributors exercise due diligence when they receive a suspicious order for controlled substances. this includes blocking or

declining to fill the suspicious order and providing additional orders in question. this legislation's common sense reduction will save lives in michigan and all around this country, by making distributors and manufacturers active partners in curbing these abuses. [end video clip] host: michigan congresswoman debbie dingell and her remarks, talking about the surge in opioid deaths on the impact in her district, the ann arbor and dearborn area. plenty of stories after the cdc numbers came out about the surges in specific parts of the country. here is the area here around washington, d.c., from "the washington post" story that came out about it. the d.c. area someone of the largest surges, increasing 46% in the district, according to

city data. virginia reported 2020 as the deadliest year for opioid-related fatalities with a 47% increase compared to 2019. maryland saw a nearly 19% jump in fatal overdoses involving opioids, according to luminary data. and for visual learners, there is a chart there from "the washington post" showing the increases from 2016 through that preliminary data that we have been talking about into 2020 in the maryland, d.c., and virginia areas. john out of cleveland, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been in the pharmaceutical industry for nearly 40 years, and i blame the distributors most recently, even before the crisis, and congress looked the other way. and the white power hit wall street, that is ok, look the

other way. supply chain, barcode has been in existence for years. there are shipments of painkilling medicine, look the other way. no other country other than new zealand and america allow thousands of commercials on the tv. every day they bombarded with commercials. how many americans know the prescription? they cannot even spell the name of the chemicals included in the medicine. advertising makes the money. blame the internet for fentanyl, and the pharmaceutical lobbying, i left the industry. thank god. this is a supply chain and they try their best -- i do not want to mention the company name, i know a couple of opioid companies in the beginning, they all made the billions.

and i want to mention this -- host: when and why did you leave your job in pharmaceuticals? caller: because they wrote a paper for no reason as a guinea pig, and it is not the tv either, you can hear my accent, so i came here to graduate school, and i was there for a bunch of time, and i am a volunteer in cleveland, but the thing is, i am not against drugs. painkillers are being abused since they've been fda approved and congress looked the other way. the barcode system distribution, you don't need that until it is delivered to your house. host: donald, hickory, north

carolina, you are next. donald, go ahead, sir. caller: yeah, i am with you. good morning. host: good morning to you. caller:? host: yes sir. caller: in 2007, i got throat cancer, and they had to put a tube in me, select the times to four times a day, i was shooting liquid oxycontin and xanax in my stomach. after months of going through cancer, you are addicted to that, especially what is a liquid going straight to you, so after my cancer treatment, my

body was hurting. when back from 2007, it had had pills from chemo and the radiation was horrible. my doctor was prescribing me 330 milligrams oxycodone's, many as annex -- many xanaxes and i was on 16 drugs for 12 years. i had a heart attack. host: how long would 300 pills last year? -- last year? -- last you? caller: i was doing 10 day. it is supposed to be 304 30 days, but when you get addicted to that stuff dashers was to be 300 four 30 days, but when you

get addicted to, when you don't take it, you feel like you are about to die, and you will do anything to get another pill. host: donald, how are you doing these days? caller: i am not doing real well. i am still affected by the chemo and radiation i got. it has really tore my nervous system up my thyroid, and depression and anxiety because i went for 12 years not even knowing what i was doing, driving on trips to virginia. and then i had a bunch of seizures because of the xanax, when they took me off of it, and then i ended up getting bleeding

on the brain and was in hospitals for 10 days. host: do you still need opioids? caller: no, i quit them last june the 12th by myself. host: how are you able to do that? caller: well, i did have my doctor help me. i told me my -- i told my family physician i wanted off of them because they were ruining my life. i cannot remember what i was doing and just a mass of confusion when you are taking that much, and then you add opioids with the xanax, and then we had medicine for depression, and the xanax was for anxiety. host: appreciate you sharing

your story and your efforts over the years. thank you and good luck to you. lance in fort lauderdale, florida, you are next. caller: good morning, john perry how are you doing? host: i am doing -- good morning, john. how are you? host: i am doing all right. caller: i have been to the eye of the storm. i started on oxycontin when i became disabled. i have a genetic disease destroying my body, so it is doctor prescribed. i started to take it, and then a year later, i lived in the higher the storm where it all got started and crazy. i walked into my pharmacist and ask for my prescription and the pharmacist looked at me and said, we don't carry that. i said for the last year you have carried it and you drop it every tuesday, what do you mean you don't have it? they said we don't have it. i said when they going to have it? they said, we don't know. you cannot tell that to someone

dependent on opioids. i ended up in the er because i did not want to go on the streets, and they would give me enough to bide me through. i finally had to get off oxycodone because i cannot get it in the county and i switched to morphine, which i have been on for the last decade, and it amazes me that there is all the stuff for oxycodone and there is anything about morphine. this gets me angry, when all the things were happening i the countyn, i called the dea and said, what you doing shutting down the pharmacies? don't you understand what that is going to do to patients like me? they said, people are dying and i said, that does not help me. also, i see the commercial on television where the guy says he lost a son and they had no idea. have you ever seen a prescription for oxycodone or morphine/

there are 3 -- or morphine? there are three or four pages of material telling you to be careful. this is agreed on part of the doctors and the pill mill. host: you said you would change people to giving it to you, what do you mean? caller: i would go to the er, and i would tell them i need oxycodone or morphine or i will go into withdrawal, and i have a heart condition and could die. so they would give me a couple of days where they would let me out the next day, and then i would call up the insurance companies find somebody, one of the pharmacists i was working with to give me my dose, and then once i switched to morphine , it went away completely. but the doctor i go to for my pain medicines, every time i go, i see him once a month, he tests

my year every time i go. the government says you only have to test once a year, but he does not do that because he doesn't want people playing games. if i am too high, they will cut me off and say i am abusing. in the 12 years i have been with him, i have never missed a test. it just amazes me how people by a drug or are prescribed a drug and they don't read the material that comes with it. if you get it now or morphine, there is a small book attached to it telling you the dangers. you have the internet to find out. when i spoke to the dea and said, don't you feel bad about young people dying? they said, yes, but they knew what they were doing. i do not see how penalizing me for their stupidity is going to make things better. host: that is lance out of fort

lauderdale, florida, this morning. just after 7:30 on the east coast. you can keep calling and as we talk about the opioid surge during the pandemic. phone lines for those impacted by opioids, medical professionals, and all others. just want to update you want to update you on a busy on capitol hill. yesterday, plenty of storylines we have followed. a couple of headlines from this morning's papers, the infrastructure deal may now hinge on talks with different bipartisan groups. president biden ending negotiations with a group of republicans led by senators on his infrastructure package after they failed to strike a deal and they enter a new uncertain pace as the president shifts his focus to a second group of, cuts and republicans in hopes of reaching that deal. plenty more on that later today and the days to come as we focus on that issue, so from the

senate side yesterday for foreign affairs, the senate approved a $250 billion bill, trying to boost competition against china and other nations. bill passage 68 to 32, 1 approval passage being delayed, the legislation writes a potential landmark effort to turn the tide on several long-term trends in u.s. competitiveness. they include eroding federal investment in the shrinking share in the world's semiconductor manufacturing. we talked about this briefly yesterday and is on the front page of "the washington times" today. members of congress and the house specifically use i- constituent, hit with a ransomware attack. the house chief administrative officer said it is unaware of the cyber attacks and how it

affected the data, with plenty of offices affected, and we are going to be talking more about cyber attacks, specifically ransomware attack's, little later in our program. today, we will be joined by jamil jaffer. "washington journal" viewers have seen him before on this program. he will be joining us in our 9:00, 8:45, actually, eastern. back to your phone calls, john, columbus, ohio. good morning. we are talking about the opioid epidemic and its surge during the coronavirus pandemic. caller: good morning. i could talk forever on the subject. i was an over 30 year active cocaine, crack addict, whatever you want to call it, and the

early 1980's. anyone with a basic knowledge of opioids, it is a physically addictive drug. you can only take it so long before you can become addicted to it. the body has to have it. we are all focused on this now, and i have never seen anybody mentioned their bootlegging xanax now, the bars, the long ones, and they are cutting it with sentinel and people are dying from that also. back in the 1960's, we had the heroin epidemic and lsd, and in the 1920's, -- i do not want to be sexist, but the cost, it wasn't opioid. this has been going on so long, the war on drugs.

seems that we have forgotten everyone else, the sufferers out there, but do you know the odds of success of active treatment? very, very small. host: what are they, john? caller: back when i was in the progress, it was 2%. i looked it up, and the when i looked at said it is similar to hypertension, they compared it to hypertension and diabetes, and i think from zero to nine, and then when they started doing the treatment, of course, it went down. and then when they got out, it shot back up to about seven or eight. it is so low, you know, that i kept going back, and back, and

back. that is what it took for me. host: what finally helped you beat it? caller: 13 treatments, and finally, i was ready, i guess. they say it happens when you are ready. host: that is john in columbus, ohio. this is jay in north carolina, good morning. are you with us? we will go to marie, greenville, mississippi. morning. caller: good morning, john. i wanted to make some statements . i am going to talk really fast because i don't want you to think i'm getting off track but it has to do with the subject. one of the things that always puzzles my mind was on donald trump made to involve the lady over the education department i always wondered when they say

she donated $200 million to his campaign, and you have never even heard of this lady or her family before, where did they get $200 million? and you were the one who interviewed, if i'm not mistaken, her brother, and he had been in afghanistan the last 17 years, and -- host: i do not remember that interview. you may have me confused, would bring me to the opioid epidemic during the coronavirus pandemic. that is what we are talking about this morning. caller: yeah, ok, i am coming to that, so that is what i felt like was blood money. host: let's go to the opioids. caller: ok. i feel sorry for those people. like i said, i made the statement in the beginning that i had never been affected by it, but that is why donald trump

lost that election the last night of the debate when he kept marking joe biden's son about being a drug addict, he never considered all of these people that have struggled with drugs. he never considered the fact of all the people who deal with opioids. he kept marking joe biden, and when he looked in the camera and said, yes, my son struggled with drugs. he struggled but got himself together, and i told my mother, at this point i looked at her, and said, donald trump lost the election because joe biden just connected with over millions and millions who struggle with drugs, and donald trump never did anything to help them trying to get over this opioid because he had taken that blood money for his campaign from devolve and her family -- duval and her family. host: coming back to the trump administration and its efforts during the opioid epidemic leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, the one that came out

after that cdc data that showed the surge in drug overdose deaths in this country from october 2019 to september of 2020, those are the latest numbers that the cdc has released. they write that the surging death rates eclipses president trump's term. during his administration, $27 billion in grants allowed more people to have access to opioid prescriptions, methadone, and t-rex alone -- methadone, and others. that helped suppress cravings and symptoms of withdrawal. naloxone, the overdose reversing drug that saved thousands of lives, also became more widely distributed. again, that "new york times" story on the surge during the

pandemic. this is great, prescott valley, arizona. -- this is greg, prescott valley, arizona. caller: i was calling in with a similar story from florida. i was a letter carrier for over 30 years, and my back got destroyed. we tried everything, surgeries, shots, abrasions, and all it had done is made it worse. the doctor prescribes me opioids. now, with all these unfortunate deaths, now they have made it very difficult for me to get opioids. it just seems like people that are in severe pain that depend on opioids are now being pushed aside because they have not given us any other alternative. they are just starting to pull these drugs off the market,

making it hard on pharmacies and doctors, and patients like me that depend on that. they make us feel like we are drug addicts because we need pain medication just to make it through the day. and the pharmacies do not want to give it out, and then i have to jump from one pharmacy to another pharmacy because the doctor has to then transfer the prescription to another pharmacy. and there is not any alternative. i think like the gentleman, one of them were talking about how drug dealers with lace heroin, even rat poison, and people were dying back in the 1970's. i think what they did was they started having his go to doctors so doctors can prescribe pain

medications so that way they could control it. now -- host: on the issue you bring up of the lack of alternatives, it was a topic that came up during a hearing last month, a senate appropriations hearing on the hhs budget. it was senator brian schatz of hawaii, who was talking to the nih director. he was asked about the availability of alternatives to opioids when it comes to pain management. here's a little bit of that discussion. [video clip] >> finally about chronic pain and non-opioid alternatives, i passed a couple of laws in this area to enable research. when people think about alternatives to opioids, in their mind they move to alternative medicine, and what i am talking about is a non-opioid pharmaceutical solution to chronic pain. i am wondering whether we are making progress in that space because certainly if people find

other ways to alleviate their pain, is a co-therapy, yoga, mindfulness -- physical therapy, yoga, mindfulness, i am for all of it, they are still the space for a pill you can take to alleviate chronic pain without getting you hooked on it opioid. where are we with this? >> that is a critical issue, and this congress has supported something we call the heal initiative, which stands for helping and addiction long-term. part of that is better treating people addicted to opioids and a big part is coming up with chronic pain management that are not addictive or opioids.as a result, we have partnered up with industry to identify promising therapeutics that attack different targets in the pain mechanism that might therefore be beneficial. such things, a sodium channel, for instance, and if you bought that, it should not

give you risk of addiction. we are making progress. we have something called at the kennett, bringing on board promising compounds and getting them to phase two trials as part of the initiative. [end video clip] host: back to your phone calls. we are talking about the surge in opioid overdoses in this country during the pandemic. bruce has been waiting in baltimore, maryland. good morning. you are next. caller: good morning. first, i want to attack misconceptions. as i understand it, someone has back injuries or other problems -- i have had back injuries before, not serious, and if you are prescribe something to deal with that, that is fine. but the misconception is, i am in baltimore city, the crime is unbelievable. the homicides. of course, we have so-called leaders, city council, mayor, city council president, and the state attorney did not want to deal with this.

you know what? the problem is people who are doing fentanyl, codine, different types of opiates for recreational use. of course, that fuels the open-air drug market to drug dealers and the gang bangers. that is the reason why there was a tremendous amount of violence. it is just unbelievable! yet, none of the leftists, none of the democrats want to deal with it, so the republicans have been pushing it. this is a problem! and, of course, marilyn mosley, she wants to make all drugs legal! what is going on? host: that is bruce in baltimore, maryland, this morning. a few comments from our text messaging service. you can join in, (202)-748-8003. if you prefer to delegate that way.

being a retired firefighter, or we would go on the squadron and administer narcan, that lifesaving anti-opioid solution, most people, upon revival, would complain that we messed up their high is what phil writes. for mike in buffalo, the opioid crisis is out of control. i recommend everybody watched the hbo documentary "the crime of the century." billions in profits, families destroyed, lives lost and communities left in tatters. the people to cause a crisis should be in jail not just pain finds. -- not just pain fines. there will be no cultural change in drug abuse, understand demand is created supply, not the other way around, steve and florida, a few comments from text messaging. you can join on social media, @cspanwj on twitter, and

facebook, facebook.com/c-span. one more chart for you on the rise in opiate deaths -- opioid deaths amid the coronavirus pandemic from the commonwealth fund, the health equity group, commonhealthfund.org, using cdc data bit showing the overdose deaths increasing and the darker the state color on this map, the larger the increase at 60 plus percent increase in opioid deaths in states that are in black, and the dark blue, 40%, a 59 percent increase during the first eight months of 2020, comparing them to the first eight months of 2019. matt chart from the commonwealth fund. this is dan -- that chart from commonwealth fund. dan, on the line for medical professionals. good morning. caller: i would like to point

out a few things, first of all, the opioid proved to be a problem because the companies put forward the synthetic opioids that they insisted were not addictive. second of all, a lot of the other drugs we have had, other inhibitors, for example, which worked well on pain and inflammation, approved to be nefarious for other things. we really should separate the issue of pain from the issue of addiction because a lot of people get addicted on these drugs not to stop pain but, as pointed out, to get high. i just wonder since we really do not know how these things work on any one individual, whatever

going to do? are we going to set a strict law so that a patient who is in severe pain, we cannot treat him anymore because we ran out of the available drugs? or we are afraid of the patient becoming addicted? host: what do you think we should do, dan? caller: i think we should spend a lot more money understanding what we are dealing with in the nervous system. basic research is so minimal, while drug research is all for profit, and they are misleading in the management of all the major problems, cancer pain, a lot of other things like that. as a result, desperate protocols are set up, and we go by these protocols whether they are right or not. this is the sickening thing. the other thing i would say is people who are hooked for one reason or another on opioids should not be treated as

criminals. it is ok if they commit a crime and they go to the court system, but if they are addicted, they should not -- they should not be treated as criminals. host: look kind of doctor are you? caller: neurosurgeon. host: thanks for the call. this is romney down in alabama, decatur, alabama. good morning. caller: morning. we have a program here called project rescue in alabama, and the biggest problem we have is with the stimulus check. we have a man in the program, he withdraws off the opiates, his head cleared up, we got him out on the job, but he is struggling in addiction recovery.and then they take away the job and sent him money. there were so you can do to a recovering drug addict is give him money. it is like throwing gas on fire. we have had a lot of trouble

with that, where they leave the program, relapse, and have to start over. host: tell me about project rescue and your involvement. caller: well, we have been here for 10 years. like i said, we are bible based. we believe the bible is the solution, but we believe in the neuroscience, two, and that agrees with the bible solution. we are a one year program, but they have want to do it on their own. we cannot lock them down and make them do it, so we try to get them to work and put them through the test. if a man stays a year, we have an 85% success rate. if he stays six months, it goes down to 65%. host: how are you able to do that work during the covid pandemic? how did it change for you? caller: oh, boy, in a way it was

good, although it was terrible with the pandemic because everything shut down. we do not shutdown adult. we did not stop taking anybody. if we got a call, we took them in. we set up our dormers quarantine --our dorm as quarantine. we had classes, and that is when we started studying the neuroscience of addiction and tying it in with the bible. i became a christian in prison after 15 years of addiction, and because i became a christian in prison, i overcame the addiction and never went back since i was released in in 1989. that is how i got into the work. host: how long has project rescue been around, and are you a staff number? -- staff member? caller: i am the director, and my wife started the program in georgia. we started in 2007 and came to

alabama in 2011. we had a lot more help with the church, and we have been going strong. we stay filled up, especially after the pandemic. we have up to 2223 members -- 20 to 23 members. host: thanks for the call. next in tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning. i have got a son that used to take them. he lived in colorado. he smokes pot now and he says it does a better than the opiates did. i cannot see why they just can't legalize it everywhere and use it instead of the opiates because no one ever overdoses on pot. host: thati is jeffrey tennesseen -- that is jeffrey in tennessee. we want to note scheduling on

the c-span networks, including where we are going when this program ends at 10:00 a.m. eastern. a hearing regarding u.s. policy on belarus, testimony for the foreign relations committee at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, and the free c-span radio app. also today on c-span3, attorney general merrick garland testifies before the senate appropriations subcommittee on the budget for the justice department. that also enable on -- also available on c-span.org and the radio app. and then the hearing on u.s. leadership in the global response to the pandemic streaming live on c-span.org. that starts at 3:00 p.m. eastern. back to your phone calls this morning, time for maybe one more, a lane -- elaine in washington. caller: well, this is my feeling

about it. when people got closed up, they stop having fun and enjoying themselves, and part of that is the production of dopamine in the brain, and that is one thing that addicts, not people dependent on opiates, but addicts, addicted to opiates, that is one reason why they are addicted to it because they are trying to run after this dopamine high. i think during the pandemic, people replaced the fun they were having in there no more life -- in their normal life with trying to get the fun of their addiction. host: would you agree with david -- would you agree with david who wrote on facebook, "just like the critics of the lockdowns predicted, this surge should not be a surprise to

anyone with common sense. it is something lockdowns supporters don't have," is what david wrote on facebook, that the lockdown and the social distancing were something that contributed tocaller: i think te deprived of their normal, social happiness. so, that is why we had higher suicides and depression is because of that. and so, some of the people who did not revert to depression and suicide reverted to taking or abusing opioids to get that high from the dopamine that is created in the brain that is the catalyst for people who become addicted. host: that is olympia, washington. our last caller, let's the ground, but he want to talk about today, up next, we turn to

the coronavirus pandemic, we will be joined by marty makary, author of "the price we pay? we discussed the needs that need to be changed in health care as we exit the pandemic and later, jamil jaffer, former security council and senior vice president at ironnet security will discuss america's cyber security defenses and that recent ransomware attack. we'll be right back. >> c-span's landmark cases explores the stories and constitutional drop between dust behind constitutional decision. -- behind constitutional decisions. sunday, new york times, better known as the pentagon papers, president nixon used executive authority to prevent the new york times from publishing top-secret documents on u.s.

involvement in the vietnam war. the court's ruling. watch landmark cases, sunday night at 9:45 eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store appeared as a collection of c-span products, roused to see what is new. your purchase will support our nonprofit operation and you have time to order the congressional directory with contact information from members of congress and the biden administration. go to c-spanshop.org. >> washington journal continues. host: we welcome back dr. marty makary to our program, a surgeon and professor of health policy at johns hopkins university, author of "the price we pay: what broke american health care and how to fix it. that book out in paperback with a section looking back on covid

and one conclusion you come to a doctor close it is clear now that our entire health care system was too slow and too rigid to respond swiftly to the coronavirus pandemic. what was the main reason for that slowness, that rigidity and how we learn some of guest: the lessons needed here? guest:health care became three years ago officially the largest business in the united states, a $3.5 trillion industry. and yet, we were unable to pivot, not just in terms of capacity management, but in terms of our research distance. the pharmaceutical industry moved quickly with prepayment of that vaccine, but the rest of our research infrastructure was unable to move quickly. for example, when the pandemic hit, the entire country was asking some very basic clinical questions, how does it spread? do masks work? how many people are acing the medic? what are you -- are ace of the medic acorn.

-- a symptomatic. the nih cannot pivot one dime of that in the first six months to answer any of those questions. you had a vacuum of knowledge and political opinions filled that vacuum. host: one place or we saw rapid research and develop mental was in developing of vaccines in this country. widely distributed, is that one place where there was now slowness, not rigidity, the concern that you have? guest: it makes you wonder, why can't we move that quickly to address cancer and heart disease and other problems. if you look at the average time and development to fda approval, it is about 10 years. if you look at the funding cycle of the nih, my research, it is about a year until you get the money. we have to move quicker in science. it is time to use mrna technology for other diseases that was developed in the 1990's, apply for the first time

in covid, but how about an mrna vaccine for hiv now at certain types of cancer and malaria and we addressed other major health problems with this sort of speed we saw with covid. host: how would you grade the cdc and fda during covid? were they some of the causes of these bottlenecks you're concerned about? guest: i would barely give them a passing grade at all. this cdc has been basically laid or wrong on every issue in the pandemic. first of all, on one end of the pandemic, why was a small group of physicians out there sounding the alarm every place we could trying to repair the country. in the cbc and many of our -- and the cbc and the nih were not sounding of the alarm and as a result, when we had the closures, it was like the rapture, people were watching us rushing to pick up their kids and scrambling to get to the store within an hour and people were stuck on trips and overseas

travel. we should have gotten more preparation we should have geared up. they were later wrong on masks, they were late and wrong on schools, late and wrong on vaccine allocation. and on recommending two doses early when we had a limited vaccine supply, we should have focused on first doses and finally, why were we immunizing early on when we had a very scarce supply of vaccine? people already onion with natural immunity, that made no sense. host: this is not the first time you are raising those concerns, you are raising those concerned at the time? guest: i wrote the first piece on universal nesting in the u.s. and in the new york times, in the spring of the initial pandemic outbreak, i took a lot of criticism for that. the reality was, we should have been hearing this from our agencies. the fda took three weeks to meet my to assemble their experts to decide on the vaccine. it was a small database, it was a no-brainer, there were zero

serious adverse events. how many statistical discussed the need to run all the numbers zero? -- statistical test do you need to run out on the number zero? do not cut any corners. if you look at after the experts met, it took another two days to issue the emergency use authorization. what was happening those two days? that is the kind of bureaucracy we should not tolerate when we are losing thousands of americans per day. host: dr. martin makary joining us, the author of the price we pay with the broken american health care and how to fix it. a professor and surgeon at john hopkins university taking your phone calls this morning on phone lines. split up regionally. in the eastern or central time zone, (202) 748-8000. in the mountain or pacific time zone, (202) 748-8001. if you have not picked up the book, it is out in paperback, you can pick up today's wall street journal on the opinion

page of today's wall street journal, dr. marty makary with his column, the power of natural immunity. what is that? guest: natural immunity is what you get from having the infection and it turned out that about half of the country meets that criteria, about 10% of the country has been confirmed to have tested positive for covid. that is about 10% of americans. for every one person that tested positive, there is probably 4, 5 or six people who have had the infection but have not tested positive. all in all, upwards of 50% of the country has had natural immunity, and the studies of the antibodies in the random population in california support those numbers as i go through in the wall street journal. half of the vaccinated have natural immunity. 64% of adults have vaccinations. about half of the unvaccinated have natural immunity. that means 80-85 percent of adults in the united states have immunity.

if you ignore natural immunity as our public health officials have done, it changes everything. all of a sudden, it is past -- including kids and demonizing the hesitant. people have a good reason not to get that vaccine. host: what is the harm of having those who might have natural immunity getting a vaccine? taking the dose? guest: the harm is when you have a scarce vaccine supply, people are dying because they are begging to get the vaccine and cannot because of supply constrained and this is a global problem right now. we have people dying in india, brazil, all around the world and we are immunizing people already onion. once there is enough vaccine supply, it is sufficient and by the way, the immunity protection is probably lifelong from natural immunity. that is from research i summarized today in the wall street journal. host: what about the immunity protection from the vaccine? is it worse or better than the natural immunity? guest: no nose because we have

had not -- not have enough follow-up. we have had more follow-up on natural immunity than vaccinated immunity because natural immunity has been around for 18 months and vaccinated immunity has been around for nine months and so, no one knows, but in general, people think they are long-term and durable. host: plenty of callers, we will get right to them. dave in maryland up first. you are on with dr. marty makary. caller: thank you for taking my call. where the doctor is is spot on with the pressure going on and i will take a perfect example. in the doctors playground, the largest hospital associations, health care organizations in the country. and with their national conference this year, in vegas, they are requiring people to have the vaccine in order to attend. and again, to the doctor's point

-- host: are you still with us? guest: i think it is a good point. vaccine mandates for people who already have immunity do not make sense and when you create this artificial construct in the u.s., as our public health officials and cbc have done, you have two groups, the vaccinated and unvaccinated, you are alienating the half of the unvaccinated who have natural immunity and those who tested positive, that counts as immunity. let's stop talking about the vaccinated and unvaccinated and instead talk about the immune and non-immune. variants -- host: variants a topic talked about when we talk about the vaccinated and unvaccinated. this is dr. anthony fauci recently on that topic. [video clip] >> one is boosting against the original wild type for which a person was originally

vaccinated. and the other is a variant specific boost. we are approaching both of those, but the one thing that we are noticing that is important is that the higher your degree of immune response against the wild type, the greater the secondary coverage you have against the wide array of variants, which is the reason why, as we have reported in previous press briefings, that when you look at particularly the double doses of primary and boost of the mrna vaccine, which we have the most data, there is rather good protection that spills over against multiple variants, so you can boost against the wild type and still cover variants, including 617. host: dr. fauci during the covid

briefings. can you put that in plain english and tell us whether you agree with it? guest: you can boost your immunity and that might increase your antibody level, which could potentially help prevent against a future infection. the question is, do you need to do that? if the immunity protection that works that people have right now with the standard two dose regimen or if they had natural immunity or natural immunity and windows, which is generally what i recommend for people who had the infection, that immunity protection might be like long, so why are we talking about boosters? i think the booster conversation will likely be relegated to those who are older and do not mount a good immune responses and the immunosuppressed community. host: nevada, kent is waiting to talk to you. you are. on with dr. makary. -- you are on with dr. makary. caller: you are worried about the health care system, the most inefficient system in america is

the u.s. federal government. they have their hands in everything and you have people like dr. fauci that have their own interests. it is proven that he has been funding that wuhan virus. he is writing -- anyway, the federal government as inefficient as they are, they continue to get bigger and more inefficient, the health care system is going to be a mess forever. and that is all i have to say. thank you. guest: first of all, i have disagreed with dr. fauci on almost every strategy of this entire pandemic, but i believe he has the best intentions and i do believe he loves this country. but in terms of our health care system, it is spiraling out of control and it will take down the entire economy if we do not change our ways. right now, health care spending is 40% of all federal spending. -- is 48% of federal spending.

about 20 plus percent of our federal spending goes to social security checks. guess where seniors are spending their social security checks? half on co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance and noncoverage services. the defense department, the v.a. benefits from federal workers, not just benefit -- not just medicare. it is 48 percent of federal spending that goes to health care now. what are we talking about increasing that 201 we talk about fortifying our health system? we have to change our ways. we had to change the payment model, we have to start talking about treating the underlying problem that bring people to care. i'm not just talking about preventive medicine, not just mammograms and what age you start that, i am talking about food as medicine and treating patients as a person and the conversations we are having now to treat more people with diabetes, with cooking classes rather than throwing insulin at them.

we cannot just keep throwing meds at the problem. we are the most medicated society in the history of the planet. medication prescriptions doubled in the last 10 years. we have to talk about school lunches as much as we talk about bariatric surgery, we have to talk about stress management and sleep science when we talk about high blood pressure and instead of throwing meds at the problem. with back pain, we have to talk about ice and physical therapy, not just surgery and opioids. these are the conversations we are starting to have and this is the disruption in health care. it is exciting and it is taking place. it will fix health care now through legislation, but by changing it to the ground up. host: "the price we pay: what broke american health care and how to fix it" now in paperback. doctor, americans have not had to worry about the price we pay for covid treatments or shots, but is it going to continue to be that way?

should americans or will americans start cap to worry about the price we pay for that? guest: i think we need to change the lexicon. when people say, i did not have the paid medicare, that money comes from your tax dollars. when we start to say i did not have to pay my insurance company paid, where does that money come from? it will fund the new alzheimer's drug at $56,000 per administration with a stampede to show any benefit. it was just approved by the fda. we have to change the lexicon and recognize that when we are talking about health care spending, we are talking about subtracting money from worker wages in the u.s. and when we are talking about addressing health care, we are really talking about getting small businesses money that they deserve instead of the current model, where most businesses in the u.s. today are getting ripped off on their health care benefit design, something they

can change and restructure. host: new jersey, this is edward, you are on with dr. makary. caller: thanks. one, when did co-pays in all of this stuff become a thing in america? to me, it seems like the biggest scam in the world, no other industry would you pay for something that you pay to use and my second question would be, what justification does health care ceo's to make $40 million a year? shouldn't they be kept at some other percentage of money? that is so stupid that they are denying people lifesaving care and these guys are walking away with money that they cannot even spend in a lifetime. thank you. guest: well, we have good people i am convinced in health care at every level, in administration, insurance, the clinicians, nurses, but we have people working in a bad system. we are playing a silly game and it is not a system we designed.

it is a system we inherited from a prior generation and that is jack up prices, way high and offered secret discounts to a selective groups. it is absurd. it is resulting in a game today, a modern date health care business model of price gouging and that comes with predatory billing. the insurance companies sometimes have no way to manage these high prices except to do cost-sharing and that is to ask the individual patients to pay a part of that care. and it is not working very well, people are getting frustrated right now. host: what is the most common surgery utah johns hopkins? guest: i do pancreatic transplant, auto transplant procedures and as you can imagine, it is involved. we work with a team. host: one of the costs of one of those? guest: i don't know. this is a procedure -- we have an arrangement through maryland, which has regulated prices and i think that says a lot about health care today that we are that disconnected from the

pricing of those procedures. host: john in hampton, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i am glad that you are on. i have seen you on other shows and i totally agree with your thinking. i am 80 years old and i have refused to get the covid vaccine because i do not have any faith in it. i think it was a rushed thing and when it is not fda approved and some lake people in congress are not even taking it. -- and so many people in congress are not even taking it. i think the health care system is good in some aspects because i have medicare and i have military. so, i am well covered. but my doctor that i had for 25 years is basically like you. he believes in the personable relationship with patients and he has always stressed to me

about natural immunity, which i have tried to do all my life, i eat right and he is always recommending vitamin d from 2000 to 5000. i am very healthy. at 80 years old they because i eat right, i eat the best stuff, i.e. the good stuff, but if people would build their own immunity system and eat right, you would not worry about that. host: that dr. makary jumped in. guest: first of all, even with the best natural immunity from eating well, people can be susceptible to the virus and we know the virus selectively affects those with -- somebody who has not had the infection, i do recommend the covid vaccines because now, 300 million people have received that u.s. approved covid vaccines with zero series -- serious adverse effects from

the mrna vaccines in less than a 1 in a million convocation with the mrna of viral vaccine. the safety profile is good. better than any medication ever developed in the history of medicine. i think food is important and we are going to start talking about inflammation in the future. 50 years from now, when we ask, how is your health? we will describe your inflammatory state. it is -- is it high, medium, or low? we will modify that with the food we eat. host: on the issue of natural immunity, fred in new york, why don't we test more how many do you have immunity? guest: i think our public health officials have ignored natural immunity altogether. let me know if you ever hear dr. walensky or dr. fauci talk about natural immunity from powerpack prior infections. -- natural immunity from prior infection. we need to talk about the immune and nonimmune and i go through

all of that data in the wall street journal today. host: it is the opinion page of the wall street journal, the headline of the: the power of natural immunity, you can take a look at it for yourself as we hear from pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. what's up doc charlie? -- doc? why after all of these years, all of these billions of dollars, we still do not have a vaccine that week again go in say and treatise for lung cancer or your pancreatic cancer. i lost a friend of mine, three years ago. died of dreaded cancer. yet in less than a year, we were able to design the vaccines, which my wife and i both had and we got the vaccine. they were able to get that in

less than a year. as mary said during the debates, based on the health care system, it is a sick care system. i liked her comment on that. it is not a health care, it is a sick care. guest: first of all, sorry to hear about your and. i treated a lot of people with pancreatic cancer and it is a tough cancer, we need to start talking about health and not just the stuff that has nothing to do with help and that is about a third of all health spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health care. we are spending too much time on this stuff on the periphery of health care. we need to start addressing the underlying issues and make our research system move faster and efficient like we saw with the mrna covid vaccine. that means getting research dollars moving quickly. my research team at johns hopkins has worked with many funding agencies, the slowest

and the most difficult is always the federal agencies, not the private agencies and it takes the nih a year sometimes to adjudicate the funding. it is so comfy, they look for small incremental discoveries and no big ideas and it is no surprise that with $40 billion of spending that goes to the budget of the nih, the top research this discovery we had in the field of cancer a few years ago with a drug that increased survival by a few months with no increase in the cure rate. that is a pretty bad return on investment. we need to start funding the big ideas. host: the big ideas even beyond health care from the price we pay, which is out in paperback. in the future, you write, we have to adapt our peacetime research systems to meet the demand of war. viral pandemics are not the only health emergency we need to be prepared for, fires, hurricanes, mass shootings will require a

more agile and resilient health care response. guest: that is right. we had medical journals that took six months to review articles on covid. we had institutional review boards at hospitals that met monthly to decide whether or not we can do research on a topic related to covid. hospital capacity, they were so slow and look, why did we think what was happening in italy was not going to happen in that u.s.? somehow, this idea of american exceptionalism has crossed over into national arrogance that somehow american immune systems were stronger and there a denial early on of community transmission, even from our top public health leader, dr. fauci. we did not hear any of those alarms getting sounded and as a result, we were unprepared for this pandemic. there were a lot of mistakes and i do not think it is productive to go back and play a beam game. in the book, i try to say -- a blame game.

so we can pivot quickly for a national emergency of any kind, be it a mass shooting or a natural disaster. host: just about 15 minutes left with dr. marty makary, a search and professor at johns hopkins school of medicine, taking your phone calls -- a surgeon professor at johns hopkins school of medicine. taking your phone calls. at the mountain time zone, (202) 748-8001. this is tony out of arkansas, good morning. caller: good morning, i want to talk about underlying problems in the u.s. right now. that happens to our health system and right now, there is money that may be earmarked for it. i do not know, but i would like to know. this is about the asbestos in the ground that goes through our water system. i do not know how long it has been around, but over the years, there has been an asbestos virus

in the pipes, they get leached into the one system -- into that water system. we have an underlying problem of intestinal cancers that nobody is saying anyone -- anything about. we need to get those pie things -- pipings bound and out of the ground. host: dr. makary, something you looked into? guest: this highlights a bigger problem that we have talked about with the nih and all of our spending on health care. it relates to everything, it is not just the nih, why are we only researching new chemo drugs when we should be looking at the environmental exposures that cause cancer. i grew up in the coal mine regions of pennsylvania and my dad was a local hematologist and he saw a disproportionate number of cases of leukemia and lymphoma, a certain type that he

was certain was connected to the coal mines. where is the research on that? all we fund research on our chemo drugs. there are over 100 molecules in the body, in the blood system of every american that are synthetic. that is, their environmental exposures that get incorporated, we will never excrete them, never metabolize them, and only one of those have ever been studied, it is pf os, there is a film called the devil we know or the hollywood version is called dark waters and it shows how the largest health public study done on one of those hundred forever molecules and it was not only associated with cancer, but multiple types of cancer and other mental disorders and a whole host of problems. it was not just one thing. we have to start funding environmental exposure research and not just chemo drugs. host: leah in cleveland, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning.

my question to the doctor is, i was told in november of 2020 that the testing was not even straightened out on the covid. by a lone doctor. i was also told by another doctor that the immunity to the shot would only last eight months. host: we only had the shot trust -- guest: we only had a shot for eight months and that is all we can say definitively. in general, when you mount an antibody response and now from research in washington university looking at bone marrow, we know that memory t cells and b cells are probably giving well immunity, that was the conclusion of those researchers. we need to think about not just the antibody levels that come after infection or vaccination, but also the memory b cells and t cells.

that immunity is a lifelong because of the t cells and b cells, which by the way, the spanish flu of 1918, they look at survivors, five universities studied survivors in 2005, almost a decade later and guess what? they still had a functioning memory t cells that produced neutralizing antibodies on presentation of the virus. that is an impressive immune system. host: nicole in new york, good morning. caller: hi, thank you. my question is unrelated, it is about the recent article that came out about the fda approving a drug that is designed to treat alzheimer's and my question is i guess what the doctors thought in terms of the fda to involvement and approving a drug without -- fda's involvement and approving a drug without a cost-benefit review. something that would be worthwhile and i think it is a

bit concerning given the fact -- everything we know about costs and increasing cost in health care. host: dr. makary, i will let you comment on it. we are focusing very specifically on alzheimer's on saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. eastern and some of this news we will talk more about it. dr. makary, your thoughts? guest: the truck she is referring to is aducanumab and it is based on antibodies like that regeneron therapy for covid. and it is very expensive and she is correct, the fda approved it against the advice of many experts. their own external panel and the american geriatrics society that opposed it saying that there is scant evidence and the only thing noticed or decreased plaques on mri, there is no improvement in symptoms, the study was not powered or conducted long enough to see those improvements, so they

appropriately asked her why was approved. what i have a problem with is the $56,000 price tag for infusion, biogen makes billions from the drug. at a care will have a policy where they will blindly pay for this drug without any clinical evidence to support a benefit. host: stacey, washington, d.c., you are next. stacy, are you with us? john in arizona, good morning. john, are you there? we will work on the four lines a bit to make sure we are still hearing from folks. -- on the phone lines a bit to make sure we are still hearing from folks. it might be a phoneline issue. not to open a political can of worms, but you mentioned your criticism of dr. fauci a few

minutes ago. i wonder how much criticism or credit you give former president trump for the development of vaccines during his time in office and how much criticism or credit you give president biden for the vaccine rollout? guest: to be honest with you, i do not pay attention to the politicians or the rhetoric. we have structural problems in the government bureaucracy and those are problems that you can either present as criticisms of the president or as problems with the u.s. government. i look at them as bureaucratic problems. i will say that operation warp speed was genius because it overcame the problem, which had prevented many great vaccines from coming to market. if you like and vaccine development in the u.s., basically most companies have given up on vaccines. the liability and the uncertainty. by prepaying for those vaccines before the development of them, we saw the power and strength of

ingenuity in science to solve problems. and so that was an incredible thing. i'm a big fan of dr. scott, brett sherard, a great physician, and a lot of the folks who work in the united states government, but the idea that somehow doctors who are political appointees have to it just say what their boss says or read speeches that are approved by the white house or only give talking points that are consistent with what say the teachers union want to hear on schools, that is a disgrace. the way we shuts kids -- and shut kids out of school, the way they were shut down in the public sector was an american disgrace and it was only done because kids do not vote, they do not have a union and they do not have a lobby on washington, d.c. and americans, doctors, they should have spoken up on that and should not have fallen in line with the clinical talking points they got from their bosses. host: close to the end of our

segment, a question from -- as the pandemic program on better footing now for the next outbreak? guest: it is funny, over the summer, between the spring and fall last year, people are asking me, how we learned lessons for future pandemics. i reminded them, we did not even learn lessons over three months of the summer. we did not have memory that lasted that long. if you look at -- he gave a very compelling speech on how to prepare for the next pandemic after sars. really, none of those talking points wherever turned into policy. the next pandemic will be antimicrobial resistance, bacteria, and it is already here. unlike an initial growth curve, it will not just hit one day all of a sudden, it is a slow-growing pandemic and i just did a ted talk on this topic. 100,000 americans died last year from these antimicrobial resistant bacteria's and it is

increasing every year because of bacteria overuse -- the overuse of antibiotics in the food we ate, we need to choose antibiotic free food and the overuse in clinical medicine. these are things we can prevent before it gets to the point where the who estimates that it will account for 10 million deaths per year by 2050. that is the next pandemic we need to start talking about now. host: we will try phones one more time. john, florida. are you with us? john, good morning. still working on the phones. dr. makary, in the time we have left on the book, "the price we pay," out in paperback, how to fix health care, what will folks learn in the paperback version if they did not pick up the hardcover version? guest: the paperback version has an update on each section and has a new section on covid and i think what it addresses is

people's frustration with the broken health care system, that over medicate's the issue of an appropriate care, how you can navigate the system and also the issue of pricing failures. collectively, if we can address the appropriate -- which doctors are doing through many groups that identify them at the disruption is happening from within, after the government. an address pricing failures, we can get to a much more efficient system because the fundamental problem in health care is that we do not have a competitive health care and when you see that as a policymaker or a consumer, you want to put rules around that behavior. but the important transformation is to convert to a competitive market. we need to have the quality measures. billing quality as medical quality. financial toxicity is a medical complication. and when american hospitals were built, they were designed to be a safe haven. so they could be a refuge for those who are sick and injured

regardless of their back ground or both. that is the great heritage of american hospitals. many were built by churches, synagogues, funded by philanthropists, there is an incredible history. we have a great heritage in medicine of taking care of anybody. and now, that great public trust is being threatened by this new business model, price gouging, and predatory building. host: how far down the road you think it will be when you can ask a heart surgeon how much does it cost for a heart transplant and they can give you a price? guest: researchers at the university of iowa did that, only 50 could give them the price after they shut them down to try to go as far as they could go to get the price all the way up to the cfo. the price range from 44,000 to happen in a million was no association between the price and quality or the charity care in an institution and the new report came out from my colleague at hopkins that some of the largest nonprofit

hospitals in the country were also somewhat doing the least charity care. host: he might be tempting fate, but we will try one more call because there are so many try to get in touch with you. melvin in fort lauderdale, florida. are you with us? caller: yes, i am. one thing, i have been a c-span listener since 1979 from the radio going to the tv. one thing i want -- one question he made about the mayor. the thing is, you keep giving donald trump -- i know he is supposed to get some kind of credit for trying to speed up the vaccine, but biden did yet -- it on their own. c-span has always been putting out -- bite and it on their own. dem and biotech. -- biden did it on their own.

then and biotech. -- them and biotech. with the masks, it was effective, there were people running down and depleting everything and buying everything, so he was telling people not to use masks initially because he wanted the nurses and doctors who needed them, that is what he said. to keep them from going out and depleting stocks so they would have them in the health care system. guest: we worked so hard to convince people to wear a mask from early on. we should have known it to dr. fauci and our public health advisors to the white house should have been wearing masks in those tight white house briefings and they should have been advising the president on the importance of masks because guess what, sars-cov-2, which is covid-19, spreads like hot sars-cov-2 one, which is ours,

-- which is sars. we got bad guidance through our political leaders and it was a slug. as i said when i wrote the first piece calling for universal masking, a piece published in the new york time, i took a lot of criticism. finally, we got folks to be believers and we need to convince them to take them up if you have been fully vaccinated. host: you can read dr. makary a short work on the wall street journal, and his book, "the price we pay: what broke american health care and how to fix it." a surgeon and professor at the johns hopkins school of medicine. we appreciate your time. it was about 10 minutes ago that president biden left on that overseas trip to meet with several european leaders, there he is at joint base andrews boarding air force one, it was at the bottom of the hour. a few minutes ago on the agenda, meetings in britain with the g-7

, visits to nato and the european union on his final date in geneva, president biden will hold his first meeting as president with president vladimir putin of russia. so, the president in the air at this point and headed over seas. let's stick around, plenty more to talk about on the washington journal. up next, we will be joined by jamil jaffer, former senior counsel to the house intelligence community, a senior vice president at ironnet security, to discuss america's cybersecurity defenses in the recent ransomware attack on critical infrastructure. we will be right back. ♪ >> coming up alive today, on this eastbound network, the senate foreign relations here's a hearing on u.s. policy toward belarus, when this that u.s. ambassador designee and the leader of the democratic opposition in belarus. that is 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. at noon, colonial pipeline ceo

joseph is testifying for the second day in a row about the recent cyberattack against his company at a house homeland hearing on cybersecurity and infrastructure. at 10:30 a.m. on c-span2, the senate returns for more work on judicial nominations, senators will -- to be a judge for the district of new jersey. at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3, senate commerce committee holds a hearing on compensation of student athletes. and that 2:00 p.m., attorney general merrick garland appears before a subcommittee to testify on the justice department's 2022 budget request. over on our website, c-span. or, we will have a hearing on the international covid-19 pandemic response and the role of u.s. leadership. it is at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> book tv on c-span2 has top

nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, best-selling author john grisham, author of the innocent men, murder and injustice in a small town. on his work with the innocence project and wrongful convictions and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, on afterwards. warmer nypd commissioner bill on his book, the profession, and one more of community, race, and the ark of policing in america. he is interviewed by charles, former police commissioner and metropolitan police chief and sunday, on 10:00 p.m. eastern, yell university history professor elizabeth with her book, america on fire, the untold history of police violence and black rebellion. watch book tv on c-span2 this weekend.

>> washington journal continues. host: jamil jaffer joins us for a conversation on ransomware and cybersecurity. he is national director of the national security institute at george mason university law school working for vice president at higher net cybersecurity. first, on ransomware attack, why does it feel like we are hearing about these ransomware attack's every day now? are they more prevalent in -- then in the past or are they going after higher profile targets? guest: it is about, ransomware

is getting easier to use, we have this development of what has been called ransomware as a service, the idea that all the kids are out there, you just have to plug in your target and pay a fee and off it goes, it will do the work for you, collect the rent some you make a bit of money and pay that money off our the service. it is getting easier to do. second, they are going after bigger targets. like criminals or bank robbers, they go for banks because that is where the money is, ransomware attackers are going after big targets that need to stay up and running knowing that that they've ago -- that they have the paid a ransom if they go down for a while. he saw that with colonial pipeline and jbs, a similar situation, we do not know if they paid the ransom, they went up and running quickly. host: who are behind the attacks and when it comes to the service providers, why cannot we track down those people? guest: a great question. a part of the challenge is that

we are associating the anonymity at peak -- a non-m&a techniques, he saw an effort by the fbi to see his back the vast majority of the colonial pipeline paid ransom over the last few days, they were able to trace the bitcoin transaction. it is a public record. they were able to trace the transaction and they were able to get the private seat access the wallet. did they get -- today take a civil action intelligent? what did they do to get that key? what of the thing is that we are going after these targets, we have to get more aggressive. it is a lot of criminal hacker gangs, but a lot of times, these criminal hacker gains in places like russia and in china are operating either with the knowledge of come up with the assent of, or at the request of those countries and so in russia, there's not a lot of hiking going on without the

government knowing about it and actively endorsing it and often times, these hackers are actually in the daytime, they work for the russian government, nights and weekends and make money on the side. host: can you give us a brief history of ransomware attack's? guest: ransomware has been around a long time because what it is is a -- we have seen the use of viruses going back to the 80's. oftentimes, those viruses were designed to extract some cost on a the end target and so, change behavior. sometimes, that turns into ransomware. in the modern area -- era, we see the ability to encrypt systems and that is where this idea of using ransom will give you the keys if you do it. the biggest example that i will say about ransomware was actually something that masqueraded as ransomware but was not actually appeared a russian attack against ukraine in 2017, they went in, they deployed what looked like ransomware, they were actually

trying to delete a wiper virus to destroy systems in ukraine. they were successful in ukraine, but they were even more successful or unintentionally successful because that malware spread and actually cost about $10 billion globally and they are about 6 billion companies associated with ukraine that cost them about $200 million each. host: we hear so often about u.s. cyber warfare capabilities and we talk about budget and spending in that area on this program, something we cover every year when budget comes up. why can't we unleash those capabilities against these criminal organizations or are we doing that? guest: it is interesting you asked that question on the just this past week, you heard fbi director say that we will treat ransomware the way we dealt with terrorists after 9/11. we have the wake-up call, we will use a whole of government

approach. one question you have to ask, let's say we have the cyber offensive weapons, how do we utilize them, we want to utilize them against the attackers, and are they or their nation state sponsors and again sometimes there are nationstate sponsors, are they going to punch back and what is that involved? there are a lot of questions about how to go after this. what is clear is that there is a variety of things you might do. one, you need to get better defenses, so the government has to work together, companies have to work with one of the because here's the thing, we cannot affect individual companies to defend against nationstates, they have virtually unlimited resources when it comes to cybersecurity other it is ransomware are sending else in this criminal hacker gangs are hacking nationstates -- we have to adopt a commission for a collective defense mentality. host: our topic, cybersecurity, ransomware attack's, if you want

to join the conversation, you can do so. the lines as usual, republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. we talked about your work at george mason university. about your background in public service and your expertise in this area. guest: thank you for that question. i started out in capitol hill as a young staff appeared i started as a computer systems manager, i was doing i.t. work and went up the policy realm. when i came back, i had a chance to work in the bush administration at the justice department at the office of legal policy. i worked on a range of the cyber and intelligence matters, including president bush's comprehensive cyber security initiative. and then i want to private practice for a couple of years, i was a trial lawyer and had a chance to work with the house intelligence committee where we -- it was enacted into law in a

modified form in 2015. and went on to work with the senate relations committee and had an awesome opportunity in the last six years, worked for general alexander, the former director -- at iron it. -- ironnet. host: how concerned should capitol hill be about this capital -- about this attack. guest: it is an important issue because members of congress have to represent their constituents. an attack on a system can harm them in doing their job. in the larger scheme, this was just one example of what can happen with ransomware. it brings home to members of congress what is happening day in and day out to public school districts, the police department, sheriff's department, firefox -- fire departments and the colonial pipeline.

and jbs, the meatpacking. it is not just ransomware, this is a larger threat we are seeing with cybersecurity, attackers getting more aggressive, nations getting more aggressive, and the harder challenge our defenses are not what they need to be and our government is not doing what they need to do on working with the industry side, but also deterring these activities. one president biden goes next week to meet with president putin, he has to be clear to president putin, love, we will not take this stuff from your government or from people operating in your country anymore. you will pay cost of this continues. -- if this continues. caller: good morning. mr. jaffer, do you think there is any real push or any agency, be it the government, the military, or schools where they are actually really pushing

cybersecurity for students to learn and for us to actually get a hold on cyber threats facing our nation? guest: it is a great question. the national science foundation has a number of initiatives to improve cybersecurity education around the country, in the k-12 level, funded by federal grant dollars, that is the important part. also, the national security agency funds at the higher education level, including through k-12. there's a lot of government agencies working in the space, but pamela is right, which is, there is not enough education, not in k-12 and for yet our peers for what we need to do at the basic level, getting that cyber hygiene right. it goes beyond that, not just enough to get your head cyber

hygiene right, that will help a lot, but you have to be prepared for the large-scale attackers to come after you because even if you are -- you might be collateral damage. host: we do not want to miss an opportunity to talk about the national security institute at george mason. guest: the national security institute was founded four years ago. we were looking around and looked at the think tank space and the academic space and what we realized was, there really was not -- a think tank that looked at the hard questions about cybersecurity that brought together a bipartisan group of experts. what other concrete answers we can give to members of congress, their staff, things that can do actual recommendations? we have a great team out there working, including jessica, brent, wendy, and john, a terrific crew at the national security institute. host: we will jump across the

potomac river to arlington. independent, good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes sir. caller: my comment is from the julep -- geopolitical perspective. i want your audience and guest to talk to the idea of hacking is a first order effect, so the idea is that if someone asked our infrastructure, then we go in and we respond by going into it and creating cyber networks or cybersecurity defense, but in reality, there could be the geopolitical purpose of saying, hey, look, we do not want america to work closely with, let's say, at this country, country y, country z. although we are throwing words and energy towards what is happening right now, oh, russia did this, this happened from russia, we can trace the ip

address to russia. i would like to have your guest to talk about that it is possible that the ip address seems to come from russia, but you can be talking about their countries and i do not just mean countries like china or wherever, you can be talking about a smaller nationstates that are trying to influence the u.s. government behavior, so if you could speak to that. guest: he raises a great point to say that we are seeing cyberspace and cyber attacks and cyber attacks and used as an element of national power. yes, jackson is right that russia, china, iran, north korea, they are the biggest players, but a lot of smaller nationstates are getting into this business. he has right to say that sometimes you might see false light activities, designed to look like it was the russians or chinese when it was somebody else. the thing about that type of effort is that the u.s. government is actually really good at attribution.

it is hard, but they are good at it. what you see the u.s. doing more recently is coming out publicly and saying, we have done the work, we have done our homework, we figured out is the russian. when the u.s. government comes out publicly, you can take it to the bank because they spent a lot of time looking at these issues. that being said, you want to be on alert to who else might be involved, what they might be doing, and what their agenda is. jackson's point about looking at the geopolitical points is right on. host: caller: i am going to show some of my lack of knowledge to some degree. i am just wondering whether there could be any connection between cybersecurity and ransom attacks, with the accusations that have taken place regarding our voting machines? is there any connection, or are

they totally different, if in fact attacks were done on our voting machines and affected them? guest: that's an interesting question. the hard thing to figure out is, did something happen during the elections and if so, what happened? we know the russians, chinese, and iranians were involved in 2016, primarily the russians and looking at ways to get into voter rolls and manipulate our body of politics by modifying narratives, amplifying narratives on both sides of the issues, tweeting dissension. we know the russians were in 2016 and we saw activity like that in 2020 with the iranians, russians, and chinese. we don't have evidence that voting machines were affected, but you have the right to ask the question, are people who have the skill set to engage in ransomware attack's might go after things like voter

machines? we know that nations like russia and china have advanced capabilities. the question is how they deployed and used them, and what with the cost be for them and what would we do should we find it out? host: cybersecurity, ransomware attack's are the topic. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. i want to drive on your private sector experience, ironnet. take me through a typical case. when does a company find out they have been part of a ransomware attack? what do you recommend when they do find out, and how do you resolve it? guest: part of our goal is to get ahead of these attacks and stop them before they happen, and make sure the entire ecosystem, supply chain, customers, and partners are well

protected. we are looking for behavioral anomalies, things that are odd and different and identify new and novel threats and stop them before they cause your system to go down and the ransomware attack. if somebody comes and says, we were attacked by a ransomware attack, we have a group of very committed hunters who can look in your system and say, let's get them out, get the ransomware isolated and protect your system now and going forward. we have a lot of partners in industry that we work with, aws, microsoft, and the like where we deploy additional capabilities to defend our clients and their customers as well. key to the whole thing in my mind is it is not about one company. you can defend one company and that's great, they are well protected, but one company can be taken down not just by an attack on them, as we saw on colonial pipeline and jbs, but

one of their suppliers or partners. run the russians came in through solar winds corporation, they attacked it to get in to the u.s. government. we want to defend not just the company but an entire ecosystem, get industry to work together and work together with government. that is what's ironnet concept -- that is what ironnet's concept is. members of congress, a lot of key leaders, they actually wrote in their report last year that said we need a paradigm shift. host: it was angus king who came on the program last year when that report came out to talk about the issues. you can watch that on c-span.org . you mentioned the colonial attack. on capitol hill, high-profile testimony, joseph blount, talking about the attack and their response. years a little bit.

[video clip] >> darkside demanded a financial payment to unlock the systems. we had cyber defenses in place but the reality is those defenses were compromised. the attack forced us to make difficult choices in real-time that no company ever wants to face. but i am proud of the way our people reacted quickly to isolate and contain the attack so that we could get the pipeline back up and running safely. i'm also very grateful for the immediate and sustained support of law enforcement and federal authorities, including the white house. we reached out to federal authorities within hours of the attack, and they have been true allies as we have worked quickly and safely restored our operations. i especially want to thank the department of justice and the fbi for their leadership and the progress they announced earlier this week. i also want to express my

gratitude to the employees at colonial pipeline, and the american people, for your action to support as we responded to the attack, and dealt with the disruption that it caused. we are deeply sorry for the impact that this attack had. but we are also hardened -- heartened by the resilience of our company and country. i want to address two additional issues on your minds, and i'm going to address them the only way i know how -- directly and honestly. first, the ransom payment. i made the decision to pay and i made the decision to keep the information about the payment as confidential as possible. it was the hardest decision i've made in my 39 years in the energy industry, and i know how critical our pipeline is to the country. i put the interests of the country first. i kept the information closely held because we were concerned about operational safety and

security, and we wanted to stay focused on getting the pipeline back up and running. i believe with all my heart, it was the right choice to make. host: if you want to watch that entire hearing, you can do so on our website at c-span.org. jamil jaffer, not to monday morning quarterback, but your critiques of that response? guest: i actually think he said what he had to say. he was very plainspoken, direct, and clear about his position and frankly, here's the reality. companies like colonial pipeline are in a tough situation. today, we don't defend as well as we could and the government doesn't share information with industry as it should. industry doesn't share with the government to understand the threats. we've got to bring industry together, companies and companies and industry and government to defend cyberspace. these companies are in a tough position. let's ask ourselves, the

pipeline was down for a week and everyone was worried about a longer-term supply disruption. you saw people doing crazy things like putting gasoline in plastic bags. by the way, don't do that. people were starting to ward gasoline but the pipeline was back up within a week and we didn't see the major supply chain disruption beyond a few incidents. it was in part because the company and ceo made a smart decision. they promptly took the pipeline off-line, got their systems in order, and restored the pipeline. one way they got it restored was a 75 bit cane -- 75 bitcoin, 4.1 million-dollar payment to get it back up and running. in the last 24 hours we've learned government was able to trace the payment and pullback 67 bitcoin. it is less money because bitcoin has dropped in value, but this

is a big win. colonial pipeline was able to get up and running quickly, no supply disruptions to the country. the money was reclaimed. this actually seems like a net win and while there is a lot of criticism to be had and a lot of people are saying a lot of things, let's be candid. if the pipeline had been down for two or three weeks, it would have been more. we don't want to incentivize bad behavior, and the more time ransom gets paid, the more it incentivizes bad actors. we have to move forward as a nation and part of it involves the government getting involved and deterring this activity by going after the criminal actors and nationstates. host: on bitcoin and ransomware -- is cyber currency possibly responsive here -- responsible here? guest: some people think cyber currency is the heart of the

problem because you can make anonymous payments. bitcoin is anonymous in the sense that you don't know who owns the wallet. what is also important is you can follow the money because it is all in public. the block chain ledger is there for everyone to see. the hard part is, how do you get access to that money? the fbi got the private key, really interesting question how they got that. they went to a federal court in california, got an order, and seized the money. host: peter out of old-line, connecticut, independent. caller: good morning. is the only way we will find out if the government has responded to cyber attacks through the newspaper? host: you are asking is there a full report somewhere that the government makes? caller: we just don't know when we respond. there is no headline that says

-- u.s. responded to russian cyber warfare. i hope we are responding, but how do we know we are? guest: it is a great question because it goes to the question of, how do you deter bad behavior? a lot of people have said deterrence doesn't work in cyberspace. it is just a different domain and doesn't function. i disagree and think deterrence can and doesn't -- does work in cyberspace what we don't practice it. make public your response. do deter someone from doing bad stuff whether it is your kid or a nationstate and he want them to stop engaging in cyber attacks, you have to tell them your redlines, say what will happen. if you do x, i will respond with y. you have to tell them what your capability is to respond and what your response will look like, here is the many things i will do to you if you do it. most importantly, when the bad

thing happens, you've got to respond and engage to extract costs and engage as a deterrent. my view, which is in an unanimous view, but it works better when you do it in public. it is not the party that you responded to but all people see, when you punch the united states in the teeth in cyberspace or elsewhere, they will punch back harder and you will experience a lot of pain. host: donald in alexandria -- if we engage in a full-blown cyber war with china or russia, who will win and what will the cost to standard of living be? guest: great question. one reason we've been leery to respond in cyberspace is because the reality is we have a significant portion of our economy and our innovation that depends on functioning cyber environments. if we engage in a cyber war,

that will cost a lot. your caller is right to raise that question, but here's the other question -- are we already in a form of cyber war already? we've been seeing attack after attack, increasing in speed and quantity and disruptive behavior, by nationstates. we may be at a low level now and not know it. it is important to note that when we get hit in cyberspace, we don't have to respond in cyberspace. we can respond in the physical domain, with sanctions, diplomatic measures, a lot we can do to deter that activity. we often think, if it happens to be in cyberspace, i've got to respond that way. that's not the case. host: just about 15 minutes left with jamil jaffer. best thing to do to check out his work is follow him on twitter or his work at national security. gm you.edu, the george

mason university law school security institute. you can call him as well at (202) 748-8000 democrat (202) 748-8001 republican, and (202) 748-8002 independent. miguel and maryland, republican, good morning. caller: how's it going? thank you for having me. host: what's your question or comment? caller: i have both. i'm going to start with my comment. sometimes i have a really hard time believing a lot of these things that are going on. sometimes -- i know for a fact that america has the largest cyber warfare groups in our country. the intelligence services control our media, our social media, our internets, and all of a sudden, these people slipped through the pipeline.

it sounds more like some kind of cia sleeper cell and blame it on russia or china or whoever they want the enemy to be. i just don't trust the intelligence services in this country anymore because of what they've done. they call white people the greatest threat to our society, white supremacy is the greatest threat. i haven't seen a klan rally in 50 years. host: jamil jaffer? guest: there is a current in the country of mistrust of government and it comes from a long history in our country of distrusting large entities of power. we are founders, distrusted the power of the king because of the way he used the power. there is a healthy way to be concerned about the government and what is -- what it is and doing -- what it is doing. our intelligence community is

not authorized and does not operate against americans. there is significant oversight measures in place to do that. i worked on a committee that engaged in that very oversight at the house intelligence committee, so there are a lot of ways to make sure that doesn't happen. your caller's right to be skeptical and ask questions. certainly, we will oftentimes go after four nations overseas in an effort to identify what they are doing and permit them from ask -- acting against the united states. that's what we should be doing. people talk about, why would the u.s. government be surveilling our allies or the like? here is the reality. our allies and enemies survey last. -- survey of us -- surveil us. i've worked with the intelligence community for a long time and i want to make sure we are doing the right

thing. i've never seen a situation where the community has acted unlawfully against americans. we make mistakes all the time and work to correct them, but i've not seen evidence of what your caller is talking about. host: south san francisco, evan. caller: it is eve on. -- yvonne. host: yvonne, go ahead. caller: recently i just got all my money stolen from unemployment by bank of america. it has taken over two months to achieve. it's been a nightmare trying to figure it out. but they stole my id. they stole my card and then they sent me a new card, and the card was activated before i even got it. it was pretty crazy and concerns me deeply. guest: yvonne's story is altogether too common.

we see these attacks that affect americans and there accounts, and at a time when we are going through a real economic struggles with the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic, it is a real challenge. we see cyber attacks where identities get stolen or money or the bank account. it is a problem but it speaks to a larger issue of getting better education, as one of your callers earlier talked about. it is important to think about how to defend not just our companies but our individuals. that's got to be a government and private sector responsibility, can't just be the private sector doing it alone. you think about the cyber domain and no other domain can you expect companies or individuals to standalone. if the russians were to drop a bomb on a city or a company, we would respond with a bomb of our own and we would also say, we didn't expect air missiles.

that is cyberspace. in cyberspace, we expect every company to defend themselves and have virtual service, which doesn't make sense. we have to bring government industry together and collect the intelligence nation. frankly, it is not just sharing information but collaborating in real time that is key. host: it is impressive that you remember the individual caller'' names. we've been through several calls, several more waiting. anthony, new york, good morning. caller: good -- host: are you with us? caller: c-span does a remarkable job, and i commend the people behind the scenes as well as the moderators'proficiency. greta, yourself, you do such a fantastic job. you replaced the previous hosts,

they did a good job, but you guys do a phenomenal job. it is amazing the intelligence and i know you don't get paid enough. host: i appreciate those comments. we've got two minutes left. do you want to jump to your question? caller: i wasn't going to call, try to save my calls were very specific. he just said that we lack trust in our government and specifically why? you said there is laws to protect us from these activities of foreign agencies or whatever, these black op agencies. what about the wuhan lab? fancy was forbidden -- fauci, what he did was illegal. flight 800 was shot out of the sky and we paid for an investigation, hundreds of billions of dollars. we cannot trust our government.

host: jamil jaffer, again, not people trusting the government. guest: it is important to have a healthy skepticism of everything, but in particular our government. we want to be sure it is doing the right thing. our country was founded by men and women who were very skeptical of overweening government power. that's why they created the first 10 amendments of the constitution and separation of powers. our system of government is designed around frankly skepticism of government power being concentrated in one place. your callers are right to talk about that. on the question of some of these activities, i'm not aware of our military flight 800, but that's an interesting question. i do think it is important that when we are skeptical of the government that we are as

fact-based as possible. where there is a problem, let's take action and have them do what needs to be done and if there are reforms, do them. we've seen at times where the government has overstepped and gone too far in congress has said, we want you to do less or under this guidance. that is an important role of the legislative and executive branches. what we don't want to do is get in the situation where we are hearing from foreign nations trying to convince us not just to be skeptical of our government but undermine the capable function. the russians are very good and would like nothing better than to have questions about the fbi, intelligence agencies, our president. that is what we saw them do in 2016 where they pitted americans one against another, creating dissension for the purpose of benefiting themselves. on the wuhan lab, it is important that we get to the bottom of this.

president trump raised the issue, people were skeptical. president biden made it clear it is the intent of his government to find out and figure out was it in fact a leak from that lab? there are a lot of questions that ought to be figured out. host: less than 10 minutes left. i'm not sure if you had a chance to read the cybersecurity section of "the wall street journal" -- why hybrid -- hackers love the hybrid workplace, calling it a constant mix of workers, security staff threat -- stretched in. -- thin. guest: this environment creates cybersecurity vulnerabilities. a huge amount of workers are working from home and have been for year. we are likely to stay in a significant hybrid environment. some companies tried to come back to the office and realized

workers do not want to. we have got to be able to defend our workers and frankly, the intellectual property that we create, the value we create. american is more -- the american economy is more innovation than anything. we know the chinese have stolen trillions of dollars from the united states in intellectual property. got to protect that. it is a tough situation that these security operation centers are in, not just the corporate networks that they control but everyone's home network to see how vulnerable it is. you are putting devices that were not on the vpn into the vpn and bringing threats in, these are difficult questions. a really important question that our caller has asked about and we need to get working on and get ahead of is this new hybrid environment. we have to defend it. host: forgive my ignorance, vpn?

guest: virtual personal network. your worker could be talking through an encrypted tunnel so all the data going back and forth is fairly well protected. if the device was operating on your home network and was unprotected, you are bringing it into a safe space. it is almost like bringing the coronavirus into a space with you. host: barbara in fairhope, alabama, independent. you are on with jamil jaffer. caller: two questions. first, if they could see this cryptocurrency, why can't they determine who was going to be the recipient of the cryptocurrency? the second question is, do governments in russia and north korea and china, do they also get hacked and do they have to

pay for this kind of operation? guest: it's a great question from barbara. one of the things to think about in cyberspace and cryptocurrency as if you think about the bank account, these bitcoin wallets, they are a lot like those numbered swiss bank accounts that we heard about back in the day, super secret swiss bank accounts. they are anonymous in the sense that walls are a string of letters and numbers associated with these transactions. in order to access that string of letters and numbers, you have to have your private set of letters and numbers that will decrypt that and allow you to get access to the money. only you who have that private key can get in. nobody knows who owns that wall because it is a random string of numbers and letters. that is interesting about bitcoin, you can trace the random string the money goes between from aid to be to see,

but you don't know who owns it. if the government had this private key, shouldn't they know who controls that account? that's a great question. that might be one of the things they are trying to figure out, now that we have the private key , where we got it from, maybe we can run down the hackers behind it? it is a group operating out of eastern europe with washington infrastructure ties. we do not know exactly who is behind them. host: mike in silver spring, maryland, republican. good morning. caller: first of all, i want to respond to miguel about the kkk. it is not like the kkk goes on facebook or twitter and advertises the clan rally -- kla n rally. you want to talk about a white supremacist rally, we sat and watched one right there in charlottesville, virginia.

host: mike, you bring up the topic and it brings up the idea of the dark web and how communications happen outside our regular ability to see things on the internet. guest: it is a really important point, exactly what is going on. most five years ago, we heard the fbi director say they were watching ices terrorists recruited in iraq and syria. we saw them recruiting americans in the united states to get a taxi or. they would ask them to move to an encrypted space for the dark web or telegram or other forms where the government did not have access. this problem of encrypted communications, while encryption is critically important to security of our financial transactions and the like, it also protects terrorists gritting americans and protects

ransomware hackers and other cybersecurity threats and the like. we have to find a way to pierce that data when we have lawful authority, get access, and make sure our government well protect us. it is a tough question, but i think miguel raises an important point also. there are these activities happening in the united states. we've got to fight those domestically with law enforcement and then go after the foreigners overseas. host: beth, baltimore, maryland, independent. caller: good morning. john, great hosting and mr. jarrir -- jaffir, great information. the credit monitoring companies, how effective are they? the government security

monitoring systems, how reliable are they? guest: it is hard to say how reliable one service is or another. having credit monitoring if you believe your identity has been taken or stolen -- and most have at some level whether it is your social security level -- number or email. credit monitoring allows you to be alerted when somebody makes a request against her file to create a new bank account or credit card, get a loan. that is oftentimes how scammers work, open accounts in your name, run up the bill, and then take off. the company and the credit card will work with you, but it doesn't help your credit. the finance the institution is out of money so they cannot help how effective they are. i don't have a great answer. host: come back again and talk with us, always and lightning. jamil jaffer at george mason law

school and ceo at cybernet. host: for the last howard -- ironnet. host: for the last part of our program, we ask for your top political story of the day. republicans can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. start calling in now and we will be right back. >> fbi director christopher wray testifies thursday before the house judiciary committee. watch that live starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, on c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. the house homeland security subcommittee on border security facilitation and operations holds a hearing thursday, looking at the federal response to unaccompanied children of the

border. live coverage begins at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. ♪ >> liz carpenter was a high-profile aid to president lyndon johnson and his wife lady bird. she was born in texas in 1920. came to washington in 1942 as a reporter working for "the austin american statesman." after her white house years, she continued her career in d.c. as an activist, political humorist, and public relations expert. >> on this episode, here are some of our conversation with the late liz carpenter. subscribe where you get your podcast. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: about 30 minutes left,

asking you for your top political story of the day. having the phones to you, our viewer. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. yesterday we learned president biden had ended his negotiations with a group of republicans over the massive infrastructure package negotiations. now shifting to a group of democrats and republicans to see if there is a way forward on infrastructure, one of the main stories coming out of capitol hill yesterday. an interesting look at two different ways that story was covered, by two of the major newspapers that we take a look at everyday. we will start with "washington times," the headline -- biden scraps infrastructure talks with gop.

president biden abandoned bipartisan infrastructure talks with senate republicans on tuesday over their unwillingness to compromise on raising taxes. that's how the lead was written in "the washington times." here is how "the new york times" covers the same story. collapse in talks. it ended a weeks long effort to reach a deal with senate republicans on an expensive infrastructure plan, cutting off negotiations that failed to persuade him to pour one trillion dollars into the aging public works system and safety net programs. two different ways the same story gets covered on two of the major papers. president biden off this morning for his overseas trip. on his agenda in europe our meetings with the leaders of britain, the group of seven

nations, followed by nato and the european union in geneva. he will hold his first meeting with russian president vladimir putin, a very busy few days ahead for the president. the president making a few comments before boarding air force one and leaving for that trip. [video clip] president biden: strengthening the alliance, making it clear that europe and the united states are tight and the g-7 will move. >> do you expect to come out with a vaccine for around the world? president biden: i will be announcing one. >> have they worked out any kind of understanding with you on their cyber attacks? president biden: no. host: president biden just about an hour ago this morning before boarding air force one and leaving for that overseas trip.

we are asking you what your top political story is. our phone lines split as usual. we will get right to your calls. jane, line for democrats in limerick, maine. caller: good morning, john. i don't know if it is a political story, but i had a realization that if we have to call certain people afro-american, certain people cuban-americans, certain people hyphenated americans, i would like to start a grassroot operation that we call people from europe european americans. how do people feel about that? why not? white europeans who came here, they don't have a hyphenated -- and so -- host: why is it an important issue for you today, jane? caller: yes --

host: got your point. jerry in decatur, illinois, you are next. caller: i was intrigued by the g-7 story yesterday. i believe it was janet yellen who talked about but there would be a global minimum corporate tax of 15%, which is probably too low to begin with. i was wondering if c-span could do a talk or story or debate on the fact that companies and corporations all succeed because of the complex infrastructure that we are born into, from sidewalks to the military to telecommunication systems. abc corporation down the road is successful because we all paid

for this vast infrastructure system that helps them to succeed. if we could have a discussion about social economics and how it is necessary for the wealthy, the middle class, and those who can, to pay their taxes so we can maintain our vast infrastructure system that makes our success possible. i think that would be important. host: do you think those conversations are happening now with debates over this major infrastructure spending, whether it is above the $2 trillion that president biden was originally looking for, less than $1 trillion as the republicans offered, or the discussion about the american families plan and how americans can pay for those plans, whether it is tax

increases or paying for it in other ways? caller: they might be at the edges, is my suspicion. of course, i'm not in those groups, obviously. before, they did a good job at sort of introducing it years ago. obama didn't express enough of it, but it is social economics. it's the fact that we all need to pay our fair share in order to maintain our success. no one is born into america to become rich and not give anything back. you know, we are not paying for infrastructure system right now. so that you can succeed and walk away with all your bundles of wealth. that's nonsense. there needs to be a reintroduction of how we all pay our fair share to maintain our

vast global infrastructure system. just look at south of the border. you've got brand-new mexican cities developing because they've started to advance their taxation system. so thank you for the opportunity. host: this is claudia, tallahassee, florida, you are next. caller: good morning. i'm going to try not to ramble. there were a few callers earlier who said they didn't trust government. but somehow, because white supremacists are being targeted or focused on. host: yes, ma'am. caller: that they focused on that somehow the government can't be trusted, but i would say to them, one shot was fired

during the january 6 insurrection, one shot. once they realized that the crowd of insurrectionists were white, no more shots were fired. that to me is the a pit ami of government trust, should be -- the epitome of government trust, should be. i think the powerful or the powerless have trouble because the government trips the groups differently. that is mainly my point, but the government is not out to get them. they shone the light on themselves by coming in january 6 and showing who they were. host: this is catherine, north conway, new hampshire,

independent. we are talking about your top political story of the day or week. caller: well, i don't know if you consider it political, but i think the top story has to do anything mentioned on coronavirus. and after -- and i have a comment -- after world war ii, there was the nuremberg tribunal , an international court that put nazis on trial for crimes against humanity. isn't taking a virus, creating it into a gain of function virus, super lethal, a biological weapon, doesn't this, isn't this a crime against humanity? and these groups of people should be put on trial in an international court for crimes against humanity, and if found guilty, go to prison. host: catherine in new hampshire

on the political issue, politics very much on the minds of voters in the commonwealth of virginia in the garden state yesterday, starting in virginia. this is the story of the front page of "the washington post" -- terry mcauliffe won the election, pulling away early from four democratic rival candidates to win every city and county in the state, as he pursues a seven -- second candidate -- candidacy. glenn juncker in his who he will face in the general election. terry mcauliffe who served from 2014 to 2018 is looking for his second term in office in virginia. you cannot run for consecutive terms as governor which is why he is running again after stepping away. primaries also taking place in new jersey as well, the story from "the philadelphia

inquirer." a former new jersey assemblyman campaigning on pledges to lower taxes and critic of the democratic governor's pandemic response. 40% of the vote totals counted almost two hours after the polls closed, more than 49% of republican primaries -- primary voters had backed him. if you want to read more, and choir.com. this is rick -- inquirer.com. this is rick in pennsylvania. caller: i would like to bring up this infrastructure deal. i think we all forget that nancy pelosi and chuck schumer walked out of donald trump's office, and that's where we are at today . i don't care what the republicans do. they should shut them down just

like the republicans shut them down. what's fair is fair in this political fight. host: at one point -- at what point down the road will we have a major infrastructure investment? do you think it is needed? caller: it is definitely needed, at least for five or more years but probably twice that long. you can't include all of these social programs and call it infrastructure. that's where we are at. nothing is going to pass, let's just look at the numbers. you are not going to get 60 votes for socialism. host: "usa today" taking a look at the numbers, the dollar figures when it comes to the plans and counterproposals. president biden's initial proposal over $2 trillion. the second proposal that it came down to was $1.7 trillion. the original republican proposal

over half a trillion dollars, but those negotiations have now ended and the president is looking for a pathway through a bipartisan group of republicans and democrats in the senate to try to find the 60 votes he would need to move that package in the senate. we will see what happens in the coming weeks when it comes to infrastructure, or if democrats choose the budget reconciliation route to move that legislation to avoid the 60 vote threshold in the senate. president biden is on his way for his first overseas trip to meet with foreign leaders, and this tweet from the president, which would seem like a tweet coming from air force one, saying -- i'm on my way to the united kingdom and europe today for the first foreign trip of my presidency. i know that democracies can rally together to meet the challenges of this new age --

this week in europe. have the chance to prove that. patrick in woodbridge, virginia. caller: i think americans are set up with retrumplicans blocking everything. it is like retrumplicans control the party. host: i wonder what are your thoughts of joe manchin saying he will not vote to undo the filibuster. caller: there comes a point where i think senate democrat leaders need to sit down with manchin and say, choose a side. you are either a democrat or you are going to be with trump. the focus on a republican who hasn't sold their soul yet to trump, and ring them over.

-- bring them over. host: who is a republican they should focus on? caller: you have met romney possibly. -- mitt romney possibly. i can't think of her name from maine. host: susan collins. caller: yes, her. there is two or three who might be persuaded or could see the light of the damage trump has done to the republican party. host: mark deason in his column -- the democrats need mansion more than he needs them, saying democrats are furious with the senator for announcing he will oppose the partisan voting legislation and not vote to eliminate the filibuster. democrats should be careful when it comes to criticism. there senate majority rests in his hands. they decided they want him to be there party's john mccain who went on his own issues but

stayed with the party, or jim jeffers, the robot republican who is the first -- vermont republican who is the first senator to hand the party -- the control to the opposite party. the senate was split 50/50 with jeffers handing control to democrats. jude in wilmington, north carolina, independent. caller: thanks to c-span, i love it. my daily bread, so to speak. host: i appreciate that. caller: john, my thing is about trust, trust in america. i'm in my 70's and america was always a high trust society. until recently. and now we are doubting everything, everything is a conspiracy, and just as an example, your last guest billed

himself as a security expert. he received a call during his segment and somebody suggested, the caller suggested that twa flight 800 was shot down by the u.s. government off the coast of new york. and that is a total fabrication. the investigation clearly proved it was blown up by an electrical problem in the fuel tank. there's no doubt about it. there's no shootdown. there's no big lie. those are the facts. i think as americans -- and your guest that was on said, wow, we should look into it, or something to that effect. host: i think he said that is something he had never heard of, that conspiracy theory. he was speaking to the point of

skepticism of government is something in general that he said was ok to trust but verify, not his exact words. but what was the caller calling into say, that that's what they believe, they don't trust the government that much. what does that say about our system of facts right now in this country? caller: it says that those of us who believe in facts and who know facts and are clear about the truth need to say something. so your guest should not have said, well, that may be true so we need to investigate it, or something to that effect. host: again, i'm not sure that those were his words. you say that people need to stand up sooner and faster to call out people when they make inaccurate claims. guest: -- caller: yeah, and i'm

not saying that gentleman who called, he could be the victim of disinformation, which is rampant in this country, as we all know. disinformation and misinformation. people need to speak up. if you are in a conversation with somebody and they are -- there facts are not quite straight, or you know the truth of it, i mean, the facts on that investigation by the fbi and the federal authorities, the faa, were very clear. host: do you find it interesting or helpful -- i don't know if helpful is the right word -- interesting to hear from a caller like that, to say there are folks out there who would believe such a thing? is not something that is helpful

to know that there are people out there like that? caller: it is helpful to know, but it is more helpful to try and develop a strategy to do something about it. you've had guests on -- and there are many sites on the internet and elsewhere that promote facts and truth about certain conspiracy theories or misunderstandings that people have. we should be teaching and promoting the truth. and making people more aware of where to find the truth and who to listen to. host: an interesting question on this exact topic. a year ago, or more than a year ago at this point, a question came up about, could the coronavirus have come from a

leak from a laboratory in china? a government run laboratory in china. there were a lot of media organizations very hesitant to even bring that question up on air. now it is something that people are more willing to bring up and talk about, and to raise that question to the point that the biden administration is taking a look at that question. so between then and now, when would it have been ok to ask that question in your mind, or speak up about that question, in your mind? caller: i think it takes some courage for people who are going on the air to actually speak the truth. speak to the truth. and sort every but some of these can -- sort of rebut some of these conspiracy theories. there are a lot of scientists who are discussing everything. i am an avid reader, newspapers and magazines mostly, but that

discussion was ongoing. it was there. it was available. maybe if people who get into media weren't talking about those issues, but it was there. it's been an ongoing discussion. i think that consensus was, and still is, that this is a zoo in arctic -- zoonotic virus, but that is not to say it is not coming out of a lab. we should not be afraid to mention that. the overwhelming majority of information would be that it didn't come out of a lab, that it was passed from animal to human. and just based on the facts, sars, mers, z cap, ebola -- zika, ebola, all past that way. host: thank you for bringing up

this topic, as we continue to have this open discussion here, this public forum we try to create every day to let folks call in, especially at times like this when we ask for your top public policy or political story. what's on your mind? turning the phones over to you in this last few minutes left of today's "washington journal." washington in st. louis, -- st. louis, missouri, republican. caller: i just wanted to make a comment on the filibuster because democrats used it over 300 times the last four years when trump was in office and it seemed great, worked for them then. now the one thing they are not controlling is the filibuster and they want to take that over too. it is kind of hypocritical to me that what works so good four years ago, now you are not happy with it.

you control everything else. the one thing you don't control, you've got to take control of that. host: what do you think of joe manchin? caller: i think it is hypocrite because another day just a couple weeks ago to hear all the things they were saying about the gop party because they turned on liz cheney, blah, blah, blah. you heard it on c-span, msnbc, ran it on loop, turn it on cheney. now they are all doing the same thing, doing the exact same thing to mansion that the gop -- manchin did to cheney. it is just a hypocrite party, the democrats. a big thing i want to say, i just got kicked off of facebook for reposting one of hunter biden's emails where he

repeatedly used the n-word to another white guy who was his attorney. he blurted it like it is nothing. another white guy, and all's i did, i didn't even spell the word. i put "n-word" and facebook kicked me off. i didn't even say what hunter biden said. i said it is ok for him to say any word and i get kicked off. host: mary in las vegas is next, good morning. caller: the last guy, boo hoo. there was a gentleman who is so concerned about socialism. we give plenty of money to the corporations. they got a ton of money in the cares act. we really don't know how much they all got because trump fired the inspector general, the watchdog.

who are they dulling the money out to? at a, social security, police department, those are all socialistic. the reason the negotiations are falling apart on infrastructure is because they want to fund it with fees. the so-called gop want to fund it with fees. they want you not only to pay taxes, but they want you to pay tolls and all those other kinds of things, after you've paid taxes to fund the infrastructure. now has anybody seen the news on the political article, and how billionaires pay little taxes, zero many times. then you've got trump who brags about opm, other people's money. he loves using other people's

money. he sends out emails begging for it, just got in trouble because the emails he was sending people for donations, they thought they were making one-time donations. turns out there were boxes checked off and people's bank accounts were being drained, so he has to pay some of that money back, not all of it, still a gain for him. host: that is mary in las vegas. running short on time. we are going to be heading to a senate hearing in u.s. policy on belarus in just a few minutes. there is the room. you can watch on c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the radio app. just a couple more callers, adam in kentucky, good morning. caller: john, good morning. good job on the cows berg. -- mcallister berg. host: i think i knew it from you

before. caller: i listen to the show and i know you get flack from people talking. a caller a few minutes ago mentioned the conspiracy theories about the plane getting shot down in new york. listen, i'm not saying that conspiracy theories are something people should live in. however, that being said, this country has instances of the government may be doing questionable or nefarious things on what they claim on the behalf of the country, whether it is colin powell telling congress that weapons of mass destruction are in iraq and then we send troops and they are not there, or even going further back in time. in paperclip, they brought nazis over your post-world war ii in operation northwood, kennedy potentially had authorization to

stage something before the bay of pigs to intervene with cuba and the iron curtain during the uss our conflict. trust but verify. that's all i want to say, is a great platform and i think everyone should be cordial with each other. i am an independent by trade but i think the country is heading in a good direction as long as people stay calm and talk to each other like human beings. host: as you have studied politics, are you less trusting of the federal government or more trusting as the years go by? caller: you know, it's funny, i am 32 years old. the more history i read, i think i become less trusting. that being said, i think there has always been less trust in

the government. when roosevelt went down to fight the spanish-american war, even back then, they said you give me the painting and i will give you the war. there has always been this maybe trust but verify throughout our time. i wish people would take that more into account. we are living through things that other people have lived through in the past whether it's controversy or political mistrust or distrust of the other party. we are all americans and we've gotten through it before and we will keep getting through it. host: in the modern era, when was the time people trusted the government the most?

caller: i think probably fdr, the american people trusted the american government more than at any time. you are coming out of the great depression and you had the actual powers that were potentially going to take over the world. yeah, i think the federal government stepped in, they injected a huge amount of money into the economy to create the war machine up today. i would say that's probably when citizens trust of the government most. host: thanks for the call. kentucky and adam will be our last caller. we will now take you over to the senate side of capitol hill. there is a hearing just about to get underway on u.s. policy on belarus. live coverage here on c-span. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021]

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